Never leave stay forever
by Belledonner
Summary: a Roy and Edward romance, a story about finding something that was thought to be lost, about giving up on hope without ever knowing what might have been. Roy x ED, and one sided Rose x Ed. R&R. belledonner
1. emotionless goodbys

**NEVER LEAVE, STAY FOREVER;**

AN: a romance about finding lost love, if I don't get reviews I won't update!

Ed x Roy.

Al x Winry

this is the updated version, mrawgirl109 was kind enough to point out a few mistakes, so i took some time to right em'.

thanks.

Disclaimer; they own the neighbourhood, I just rent the house.

Enjoy!

XxX

Belledonner.

* * *

Roy stared straight ahead, his eyes not seeing the still morning countryside before him, his attention, though it may seem otherwise, was completely focused on the blond head beside him. In his peripheral vision, Roy saw Edward shift slightly and glance to the left, away from him and towards his very much so alive brother on the bench a few meters behind, then his eyes refocused straight ahead, refusing to neither look at the now general or completely away.

He couldn't take the deafening silence that had formed thick around them, he was the first to break, and though he hated that fact he hated the silence more. "Why are you leaving?"

"I don't know." Edward; he had never given an explanation to his sudden departure from Resembool. He had just suddenly gotten up from their bed and announced it after his automail had been replaced and Al had told them he wasn't leaving Winry. Roy had wanted to come with him, but Edward said he needed to go alone, and nothing more was said about it.

"When will you be back?" Roys voice was low and smooth, the perfect imitation of a lecture tone he would take with any subordinate.

"I don't know" Edwards voice was bland and void of any emotion, those he held in his eyes. In the corner of Roys vision he could see the panic-like calm and the hardened glare that showed his determination in a way that no words could explain or describe.

"Will you come back to me?"

"I don't know."

"Your mine now, forever. Don't go, don't leave me." The words were hard to say, but he choked them out in the hope of Edward staying with him.

"Don't say that." Edwards voice had taken on a slightly frozen edge, like he was afraid of what he would do if he let himself go.

"Why not? I plan on you staying with me for the rest of our lives. I am yours, completely, heart and soul. As you are mine. Please, don't leave me." Roy didn't take his eyes of the train tracks before him as he studied his young lover, saw the tension in the set of his shoulders and the slouch in his posture as he studied a particularly interesting bird poop with just a little too much attention than strictly necessary.

"If you never own something, you can never lose it. But if something is owned, it can also be lost. If something that's is not owned goes astray, then it was never yours to own and have the chance to lose."

"I never lose things so close to my heart. Don't go, if you are here then I can never lose you."

"If you love something…"

"Set it free…" Roy sighed as the familiar lines of the poem fell through his mind.

"If it returns…"

"It will be yours forever"

"If it fails to come back…"

" Then it was never yours to keep."

The train pulled into the station, breaking the silence the poems lines had incurred and had settled over the pair once more.

"You haven't set me free." Said Edward after second longer, his voice was still clear and empty. Roy cursed that voice, remembering when it had been filled with life and passion as he called out Roy's name.

"Because I am afraid." Roy's mind was remembering the better times they had shared and wondering if there would ever be more, his hard blue black eyes shining in the morning light as equally golden eyes swung his way with just a flicker of fire and anger in their depths. The passengers began to disembark and crowed into the small platform, both men lowered their voices as the people began to crush closer to them.

"So instead you would cage me?" even if his eyes were now glued on Roy, his body was angled straight ahead, his face not even turning a degree to his right to give himself a better last view.

"God loved the bids and created trees. Man loved the birds and created cages." Another line from a poem, since when had he turned to a sappy romantic? Since he had met Edward apparently.

"If you truly love me then you will let me go. Set me free."

"I will miss you." Roy stated, not expecting an admission in response but hoping for one all the same. It was rare that the Fullmetal alchemist would show that much open affection with words, preferring to use actions instead.

"I know"

Roy gently squeezed Edwards hand. And without another word, Edward headed towards the open carriage doors.

And for the first time in his life Roy walked away from something he couldn't win.

* * *

Xx

Belledonner


	2. Fate loves irony

Edward sat back against the train seat

AN: did you like the last chapter?

Thanks VenusOfHeacter, and mwragirl. (Not hart wrenching enough? Got any ideas for me?)

'Fate love irony.'

Disclaimer: they own the neighbourhood, I just rent the house.

Belledonner

Edward sat back against the train seat. His eyes watching sightlessly through the glass at the countryside that was flashing past his window.

Seated across from him were a young couple and their daughter, the small child looked to be the same age as Elisia, she even had the same doting parents. It made him sick to the stomach to see that happy family then imagine his future, a future that would undoubtedly be filled with yet more hardship and struggle. But one thing in his future was certain, set in stone; he would never have a family, he would never feel the weight of a bouncing baby girl on his knee nor would he ever see someone gaze at him in the way that young woman gazed at her husband.

Equivalent exchange wouldn't let him, and Roy didn't understand. Edward owed too much and given too little, Roy was a sick, twisted reward for his sins. Something that would be taken from Edward when he let himself grow attached and comfortable, when he let Roy into his heart. Just like everything else.

Roy.

"I'll miss you too," Edward whispered into the misty glass of the window, answering the words Roy had spoken with his own, the words he was too cowardly to say to his face. Edward breathed out, his hot breath making the frost billow out like a spider web, long trendels reaching out as if to grasp the last rays of the sun as it passed behind a cloud.

His fingers traced over the metal craftsman ship in the object he held tightly in his hand. The cold silver against his flesh palm felt warm from the memories of were it came from, though the hard drum of rain on the train roof reminded him were he was headed, where he needed to be. He knew he should move forward; forget Mustang and go his own way, throw the object out the window and never see it again; it would be easier to forget if he didn't keep a permanent reminder in his palm or in his mind. But that was easier said than done, the dull ach in his chest and in his mind reminded him with every breath and pulse of his heart of what he was leaving.

It would never have worked, Edward reminded himself for what seemed like the hundredth time since he had left mustang on the platform. It didn't seem to matter how many times he had told himself to move on and leave thoughts like these back in Resembool, his thoughts always seemed to circle back to the same point.

Roy.

It was just a name. Just the name of his once superior officer. Just the name of the basted that had made his teenage years a living hell. Just the name of the man who had saved him, on dozens of accounts, not only from the dangers Edward had placed himself in, but also from Edward himself. It was just the name of the man he loved.

It was just a name.

He lifted the object Roy had pressed in his hand in that brief moment before Edward boarded. The silver glinting duly in the shadowy light.

Edward opened the window wide, ignoring the squeal of the little girl as the freezing air swept in and flushed out all the hot air and stray papers. He lifted the lighter to his eye before dangling it at arms length out of the window and in to the rain swept county side, his fingers slowly uncurling from their frigid hold on the cold metal.

Move forward; never look back. Never regret. Never need. Never love: so you can never leave something worth staying for. So you can forever stay with the memory's and nothing else, because you can't erase a memory, you can never leave a memory behind; it will stay with you forever.

One last time he read the inscription, the tiny letters scratched into the side of the sterling silver, for the last time before he released his path and moved forward.

'_Love: like the sun loves the earth, and shines bright because of it and for it. You are my earth. My one and only love, do not forget me.'_

"And I will love you like the stars love the moon; from a distance. Never forgetting, but never returning for something that belongs in the past." He muttered into the stormy air, his words whipping away into the turbulent fast approaching night.

_Fire and ice- they were never meant to co-exist. _

So Edward stoped trying to force against nature, and went his separate way.


	3. A single tear, a torrent of rain

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AN: hello, another ast filled chapter for all of you!!

Discliamer: they own the neighborhood, i just rent the house.

Belledonner

* * *

The tear on his cheek had long since dried up, leaving only a tiny salt-crusted track down the side of his face

"Where's Edward?" those words, the words that broke through his denial, they shattered his life as the denial broke and brought thoughts the fore that what he wished never had occurred. _Those goddamn words,_ Roy thought. His blank expression covering his emotional imbalance with an ice-like calm so estranged on his usually passionate features. And where was Edward? Roy did not know. He had bordered a train without so much as a goodbye, leaving Roy to pick up the torn pieces of what was once his life.

"Roy, where's Ed? And Alphonse? Where are they?" the voice asked again. Roy could see the figure of Winry in the doorway; see how her lower lip trembled and her eyes filed with worry. And though he could see her, it was as if she were directing the question to someone else. Roy felt as though he were the third person, looking on to a conversation he was not apart of, like watching a movie. He felt detached.

_I don't know._

"Alphonse will be home soon." Roy said in a voice void of all emotion as he allowed his mask not to slip even a fraction to betray his turbulent feelings, his stiff posture mirrored the tenor with its unmoving stance that barely wavered as he spoke. "Thank you for being such a gracious host."

He bowed formally to Winry, unable to tell the young girl that her best friend had left to an unknown location, probably never to return.

Roy turned and left without another word, hearing Winry burst into sobs behind him as he walked down the uneven path, a single tear cracked past his emotionless mask and made its way down his cheek. It would be the only tear Roy would ever shed for Edward; he was not dead, only their love was.

"When will you return?" Roy asked from his place on the bed, his eyes still haze from sleep as he watched the blond alchemist stand stoic still at the small window at the end of the room. And although Edwards back was turned from him, Roy could see the tremble of strong muscles as he tensed at the sleep muffled words.

"_I don't know." Edward said, his voice full of frustration, tight against the irritation and anger boiling beneath his golden skin._

"Will_ you return at all?" Roy asked; there was something closed about the youth before him, something that said he would not be opening up again. Something that said 'go away', as if he was too proud to say; ' I'm sorry'. Or perhaps 'goodbye'._

"_I can't promise I will." Roy saw the shiver of tension run down the youths bare back, the strain of his emotions weighing him down, till Edward unwillingly bowed under their weight._

"_Will you try?" Roy asked, hoping to insight emotion from the blond by the window whose stoic status was starting to scare him._

"_Only if I am needed." Came Edwards reply, void of any emotion. Roy shuddered, he could not even imagine what was going on in the other mans guilt driven mind._

"_I need you." Roy said in desperation, standing from the bed they had shared and beginning to walk towards the blond at the far side of the room._

"_No, you don't. I have destroyed lives, mustang," Edward said carefully and Roy flinched back, hurt, when Edward reverted to his last name, Roy stoped in his tracks, Edward was acting as though the history between them was wiped away clean. "I have _killed_. And I have to make best amens possible. But it wont be enough, so once I have given everything in me to the people I hurt, I will give myself. I will give those grieving family's hurt by my actions what they deserve; I will give them the guarantee I wont hurt them again."_

"_Don't be stupid, do you realize what you saying?" Roy pleaded; Edward hadn't turned from the window, his metal finger splintering the wooden sill as he forced his emotions out of his voice._

"_Yes, General, I do. I will do what's right when it needs to be done." Edward turned, his lifeless eyes chilling Roy as much as his words had. Edward stood, surrounded by the glow of the rising sun, his hair a silken mass loose around his shoulders, bear chest perfect in the golden morning. And through the beauty, Roy saw the determination, the drive to do what he perceived was right. But he also saw the pain and grief the boy himself was going through inside. Not for the first time Roy saw an old man who had seen too much in the eyes of the 21 year old youth._

* * *

Alphonse wept.

He watched the drifting smoke of the long past train dissipate into the stormy clouds, adding to their ominous purple darkness. The storm spread like a bruise across the sky, marring its perfect sunset and turning it dark and turbulent.

He cried till the tears fell no more and he was left with dry hacking sobs that wreaked his body and left his mind empty and dull black as the ugly sky.

He rocked back and forth, knees tucked tightly into his chest. His back ached from the position, but he couldn't move. The cold concrete dug into his spine and chilled him to the bone, it sapped the heat from his body and left Alphonse shivering in the onslaught of rain, but Al couldn't move. The sky cried with Alphonse, its tears running in torrents down his face, a mask of pure misery and defeat, but Alphonse Elric could not move. He _wouldn't move_. He would never move again. Never move from the last place he had last seen Edward before his brother entered the train that took him away from his life and left Al to pick up the pieces and try to find new meaning in his world without the brother that had been his one solid anchor when his life had been in upheaval.

He was lost in a world that yesterday had seemed so familiar, and now was so foreign.

He was lost, because his guide and protector had left. His brother was gone; his only family had left him. Edward had _abandoned _al. And he hadn't even said goodbye.

A shudder of furry ran through Al's body, causing his skin to flush against the cold even when his teeth were chattering inside his clammy mouth.

_Why would he leave _me_? He is my brother and he left me alone without him, he took my only family away and didn't even turn to wave. How could he leave me after everything we have accomplished? After everything we planned to do? Didn't he love me any more? Was he too bored to settle down in Resembool? Why didn't he say something? Now that I have my body, dose he not love me? Did he think I would not miss him if he were gone? How could he be so…so…selfish! _

As soon as the anger passed it was replaced with a torrent of guilt to take its place.

Brother would never leave me if he loves me. So why did he leave? Alphonse asked himself as another sob shuddered through his body making the rough concrete beneath him grate through the thin fabric of his shirt and bite into the skin benneth. Logic shone through his cold depressed mind like a flash of blinding light or a glint off an automail arm.

He loves me. He didn't abandon me; he just thinks I can take care of myself now. And I can, I just don't want to be alone in this world without family beside me. I don't want my best friend to leave because he thinks I don't need him any more. I will always need him. Always and forever.

* * *

­

The tear on his cheek had long since dried up, leaving only a tiny salt-crusted track down the side of his pale emotionless face. The solitary track was not joined by others, nor was it brushed away, but still Roy refused to let himself cry, to grieve, because Edward had left. _He's gone, move on._ Mustang told himself for what seemed like the hundredth time, and though he said the words aloud and mentally, he could not help but feel somehow dead inside.

He stared into the murky liquid held in the glass clasped so tightly in his hands, only he could have found such a run down old pub in the middle of no were. And he needed it, now that his life had yet again been turned upside-down. Was it not enough that he had to be subjected to the massacre of Ishbal and then proclaimed 'hero'? Not enough even after his best friend and anchor to life had been taken from him too? And so now fate needed to take Edward, who had been the one thing after Maes' death that was worth living for and not putting the barrel back into his mouth?

Why would the fates take away the thing that he had sworn to devote his life to? Would they take his alchemy next?

_No_, he thought through his beer-hazed mind,_ the only person capable of stoping my alchemy is Edward, and myself._

He fumbled with the white gloves on his hands, stripping them off his shaking hands and holding them before his eyes. He frowned at the pair with gleaming arrays on their backs. He hated them. Hated every thing they represented; the deaths they had caused, the lives they had ruined, the battles they had won at such high costs, they represented him. And he hated it.

_If Maes had been here, he would undoubtedly punched me by now_, Roy thought, smirking slightly at the thought of his dear friend before the realization came to him and his mind shut down to the self inflicted hatred and pain boiling beneath his skin_._

_But he is not, no one is here, I am alone with only memories for company. It feels worse than death._ He decided with a shake of his hair, a vain attempt to dislodge the cobwebs that had formed in his mind to prevent coherent thought.

He dropped his gloves to the sticky counter beneath him, pulling the glass of oblivion to his lips and downing the amber liquid. It ran down his throat without Roy tasting its burning flavour, and he hoped against hope that maybe he would lose himself in his drink, but no matter how deep the glass, nothing would be big enough to drown his sorrows and pain.

He hit rock bottom as he hit the hard wooden floor.

* * *

Winry entered the rundown tavern with a panicked expression that was distorted by the flow of tears that coursed down her face. In her clenched hands were a wrench and a crumpled piece of paper.

With a glance across the room, her grief and worry were overcome by anger at the sight to the man hunched over the counter nursing an empty glass with a haunted expression.

She snarled, baring her teeth, when she saw the spectacle; who was he to morn for a loss? This was the man who had most probably driven Edward away in the first place, what right did he have to feel sorry for himself over the family who had lost him? This man was no family to her, and never would be.

She stalked through the empty bar; foot connecting with the rotted wood of the stool the man was slouching upon. Mustang didn't even look up as the stool legs collapsed under the assault and he tumbled gracelessly to the floor, lying sprawled on the heap of snapped and rotted wood, the glass he had previously held lay shattered by his side.

His midnight eyes slid closed, heavy breathing bringing the strong stench of alcohol to her nose.

"You're pathetic Mustang." She snarled at him, her voice barley above a harsh whisper.

"I know." He said equally as quiet, though his voice lacked the aggravation it supplemented with the sorrow and long suffered pain that laced his hushed words.

"Edwards gone, and Alphonse is missing and all you can do is sit in your hole of self pity and get drunk?" she asked, her voice rising a notch, Mustang made no response, not even opening his eyes or flinching back as her venomous words were accompanied by a swift kick to his ribs. "What do you possibly think you could accomplish by doing this?"

"I could drown my pain," Mustang suggested with slurred words. "But the damn pain learnt how to swim. Stupid pain."

"You are being selfish, Mustang. Get off the floor and find Al. I know Edward meant a lot to you, but if you continue to behave like a spoilt child, then you don't deserve to kiss his boots, let alone look him in the eye."

"You're right, I don't deserve him, I never did. But I do love him, even if he does not return the feelings. If I find Alphonse, do you promise to let me leave Resembool without informing Alphonse of my departure?" he asked; one midnight eye sliding open as he pushed himself up onto his elbows.

"You can do what ever you want," Winry said after a moment, "just find Al, I need him now more than ever. And he needs me too, he's just doesn't to realize it yet."

"Then I will," he said before standing and bowing once again, although shakily. "I won't be surprised if we never meet again, miss Rockbell. I hope you and Alphonse find the happiness I lost."

Winry watched Roys back as it walked through the tavern door and out into the storm, a flurry of rain spilling through the open doorway before is crashed back on its hinges making the glass bottles lined on the bar wall clink together and glasses topple from tables.

She stood still for a few moments, listening to the howl of the wind behind the wood log walls. Listening for any noise that would signal Edwards return, or that of his brother.

But nothing came to her ears and she sighed heavily, collapsing her weight onto a rickety stool by the bar, it creaked beneath her weight as she slumped forward, dropping the wrench held in her had to the floor and brining her hand to cradle her face as her other hand smoothed the crumpled piece of paper out and her eyes began to scan the page she had already memorized.

Winry.

_I hope you understand that I cannot stay. I wish I could, but I can't. Resembool holds nothing for me but memories I would rather forget. _

_I am going somewhere I can help the people I have hurt, please don't worry for me because this is what I want to do, and I go willingly. _

_I will never see you again, so please look after Alphonse, tell him I love him; that I will never forget him and I never regret making him whole. No matter the price._

_Look out for Roy, I know you don't like him, but you don't need to, just make sure he knows I love him and I would never have left him if I saw a way we could be together. Make sure he dosent do any thing stupid._

_Thank you Winry, I love you like a sister and hope you and Alphonse are happy together._

_Love Edward. Elric._

And again Winry cried. She had already failed her best friend.

* * *

He listened for a moment at the door and heard quiet sobs through the wood. The wind whipped at his back and screeched in his ears bringing lashes of rain that soaked his hair and chilled his skin. He barely noticed it had soaked through the dark fabric of his civilian clothes.

For the second time that day, Roy walked away with Winry sobbing behind him. And he swore it would be the last time.

He walked to meet his new future, one as dark and hopeless as the storm that gathered overhead. Just as Ed had boarded the train out of his life- Mustang left behind the place that had once been so full of bright ideas and promise.


	4. unresponcive

**AN: another boring, sentimental chapter, but I promis that plot is on the way, we are almost compleetly finished the morbid drivl I am sproutin so depressingly.**

**Well I hope u enjoy the next depressing chap!**

**Xx belledonner.**

**DISCLAIMER: they own the neighborhood, I just rent the house.**

**

* * *

  
**

_**And I don't want the world to see me,**_

_**Cause I don't think that they'd understand,**_

_**When everything's meant to be broken,**_

_**I just want you to know who I am.**_

_**Goo goo dolls- iris.**_

_**

* * *

**_The senary past by his window, marred by the faint webbing of fingerprints where he had pressed his hand to the cold glass, congealing with the mist that billowed out across its surface with each exhale of breath that coursed through his unfeeling lungs. He felt like he didn't need to breath, all the movement was doing was clouding the view of the world. A world that slowly turned from farmland and crop fields to the sparse and uncultured emptiness with only a few rocks between the dunes to break up the endless nothingness. And through the hours that had past with the world outside the train, he had stared at it all, not seeing the glistening brilliance of the hot sun sparkling across the fine grain of sand, nor the storm that he had left behind; now barely a bruise on the horizon of the perfect sunset.

That bruise would be still hovering over Resembool, so he forced himself not to see the background as he past it. Passing too swiftly to take in the real beauty of it all, too fast to notice that there was nothing at all left to witness it. For all its perfection, the golden desert was still flawed, harsh and unforgiving: ugly.

He had not slept, though his body ached from the stiff position he held himself in, the uncomfortable bench digging in at his back and chafing with every jostle of the train. He hoped Al was at home, asleep with Winry by his side. Roy…he hoped Roy was safe… once again he stopped thinking. Letting his mind fall numb with his body, blocking all senses and thought, giving into a type of self inflicted comer.

Unresponsive to the world's flawed perfection around him.

OOO

The sound of grinding steel grated on his nerves and echoes through his head to stir his consciousness from its catacomb as the train slowed to a stop. Outside in his perefial vision he could see the sprawling ruins or Lior, the town he had ignored. He had stopped running from one mistake to flee from another; at least he would have time to fix this one.

As he stepped off the train, he left a weight behind and bore another in place.

Roy staggered through the torrent of rain that blinded him, drenched his senses to a mind numbing nothingness. The water didn't fall from the sky; it cascaded as through tipped from a child's cup in clumsiness, the sheets of bone chilling water so cold as to form a slush of sleet that pounded against the ground and turned the dirt to an oozing mud that caked his shoes and sucked at his feet as though to keep him there with its grasping arms of rotten sludge.

It fitted, he supposed, that this would be the weather to best suit his mood; but then, he would never be so undignified as to cry.

The tear shaped droplets fell so fast and close they merged into sheets, poring down his cheeks and running rivets through his slick ink black hair. Down to join and mingle with the sweat that beaded in the pores of snow pale flesh only to drown helplessly in the crystal ribbons that ran down his throat; pooling for barely a moment at the base of his neck, in the hollow formed there before trickling beneath his a collar so saturated with water and misery it could no longer soak the liquid or retain any heat.

Roy didn't care. He felt every droplet on his skin, felt the sticky clench of wet fabric, to tight with water, cling to his body and impair his movements. He felt the chill that slowly seeped into his bones and forced his teeth to click against each other almost silently in the roaring rain as his jaw clenched against the shivers that threatened to quake his body. He felt the raised gooseflesh on his arms and neck, the slight heaviness of rain droplets on his eyelashes and the intense cool as they slipped over his eyelids and down the sides of his face to join the rivers he could feel trickling over his jaw line and down his tightly strained neck. Felt the tendons and muscles ach from constant straining to see through the ceaseless downpour.

Roy wanted nothing but to forget.

The sight that was blurred through his vision looked drained of color, through the gray of the rain like a filter from the real world that he would not let touch him.

Not mentally.

He immersed himself in his physical senses so he could forget the psychological wounds that dug deep into his grey soul and sapped the pigment of gold from everything; turning all his priceless memories to cheap, silver plated souvenirs that he would rather leave in a corner of his mind to collect dust than take the bother to throw them away.

He blended with the background, becoming grey and lifeless in the torrent of never ending rain that fell from the sky.

He trudged towards the train station that never seemed to get any closer no matter how long he walked.

Alphonse would be there; he knew and hated the fact. But he still struggled forward away from the sucking sludge that he drug his feet from time and time again when all the wanted to do was let the ground open up beneath him and pore the stinking mud down his throat. To let it wash away the vile taste of loss and take him from the misery he could not hide from even in his own dull mind hung with cobwebs of unkempt.

The water tasted too pure as it creped through the corner of his mouth, a hollow and faded echo of what was once his.

He didn't want pure. He wanted nothing to remind him, he wished for the taint that could drown him as it once did.

His foot hit the first wooden step long before Roy heard Alphonse's whispered questions barely heard through the veil of rain and pain that clogged his mind and suffocated him.

.


End file.
